Alarion wasn’t so sure.
Even with Kali’s encouragement, both physical and verbal, he was stuck in a rut. They had been at it for nearly two weeks, stopping only for the ‘flawed necessities of biological life’. They ate, they slept, and they sparred. Sometimes, usually in the early morning, when a good night’s sleep had restored some measure of vigor, they took to banter, talking about anything from history to literature to petty gossip. By mid-afternoon, they were locked into a rhythm, focused intently on the endless battle rather than the aches and pains of their flagging stamina.
By evening, even Kali was just waiting for their time to end so they could start fresh in the morning.
He just hid it better.
“You think you’re going to hit me with that? I barely even had to move!”
Even the taunts were lazy. Kali knew how to get a rise out of him if he needed to, and mocking his exhaustion came nowhere near the cut. ZEKE had mined that well dry years ago.
“Right, teleport behind me and-“
“Could you just shut up?” Alarion snarled, bringing his mace down hard into the river after flickering to Echo, just as Kali knew he would. There were no real tricks left in his toolkit. No surprises yet unseen. If Alarion flickered to the weapon after he threw it, Kali knew how to dodge. If Alarion didn’t, then he’d just disarmed himself, and Kali knew how to punish that even worse.
Sometimes he didn’t even know why he tried.
It felt as though he’d been stuck here forever, endlessly smashing his face into the mountain of muscle that was the Godborn Sergeant. First, the duel; then, the resistance training; and now this. He was almost as sick of fighting Kali as he was of his lack of progress.
But that was the funny thing about the System.
Progress for the unawakened was a steady, unremarked-upon grind. There were no levels, no milestones, or System epiphanies. If a man wanted to get better at something, he practiced, and slowly but surely, he improved.
Such improvements were not measured by Status screens, but by comparison to known challenges. How long to run a mile, how many swings to chop a log? Sometimes the gains were insidious, going entirely unnoticed until a suitable obstacle presented itself, leaving one wondering how such a thing had ever posed a difficulty in the first place.
Contrary to popular belief, the System did not replace this sort of natural growth. It quantified and empowered it, yes, but the underlying mechanism remained. A level up gained by relentlessly training [Sword Mastery], for instance, was not as binary as it appeared. Each swing of the sword came with knowledge, with new muscle memory and practical know-how. The Awakened improved through training, but those incremental gains were often overshadowed by the rapid growth of each new level.
Especially when there was nothing to use as a comparison.
Or when that comparison tried just a little bit harder each day.
Alarion had been getting better. By leaps and bounds, in fact. But with Kali subtly ramping up the pressure each day, Alarion had no idea how much until the System told him.
Skill Grade Up! Oversized Weapon Mastery (Uncommon) and Thrown Weapon Mastery (Common) -> Pathforger’s Mastery (Rare).
Pathforger’s Mastery [Rare]
Description: Through trial and error, along with seemingly endless practice, you have distilled the techniques you have been taught and adapted them for your own use. No longer content with mere Vitrian swordplay, oversized weapons, or thrown daggers, you have begun to coalesce these fundamental techniques into a style all your own.
Requirements: None
Type: Passive
Effects: User gains a minor increase in damage, speed, and experience gain when wielding an imperial greatsword, oversized mace, or any thrown weapon. Increase this benefit to moderate if user wields at least two of this skill’s primary weapons. User gains a major increase to dual-wielding ability.
Growths: STR +10
Note: This skill will be unavailable for future rarity upgrades until the user has solidified the nature of their Mastery.
Skill level increased. Pathforger’s Mastery is now Level 1. STR +10.
Alarion had no time or inclination to read the description as he exploded onto the offensive, his dual weapons raining down on Kali with an utterly unexpected ferocity. Though only a modest improvement in rarity, the difference in his dexterity brought on by the epiphany was night and day.
Though he’d been using two oversized weapons for years at this point, Alarion had never developed a proper dual-wielding skill. The general skill, aptly named [Dual Wield], was made for small, single-handed weapons, not the massive slabs of steel at his disposal. When he’d overlooked the offered alternative in favor of [Dimensional Evasion], the System had apparently thrown its hands up in frustration and lumped all his training into pressing his Mastery instead.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Just like ZEKE had thought it would. It was a long-term investment that had finally paid off.
“Come on, Kali. You can do better!” Alarion taunted as he forced Kali onto the back foot—and not just out of surprise. He had a genuine advantage over the big man for the first time in ages, his staccato blows coming fast enough to deny every counterattack from Kali’s training rod.
But not from his right foot.
The kick swung through empty air, missing Alarion, who was already in full retreat, by half a heartbeat. Even though it shouldn’t have.
That was the other funny thing about the System. Growth in one area often cascaded into others.
Near and Far [Ancient]
Description: With training, you have gained a better understanding of the push and pull, the Ebb and Flow of combat. More importantly, you have learned to manipulate this balance to your advantage, both through your actions and through a sympathetic bond with your opponent.
Requirements: None.
Type: Active
Effects: To activate, channel a minor amount of MP and stamina, with a slight stamina upkeep. The user creates a sympathetic bond with one target who is engaged in direct combat with the user. For the duration of this active skill, the user and target are subject to the condition [Near and Far].
Under this condition, both affected parties gain a stacking increase to either offensive or defensive actions, with a corresponding decrease in the unselected category, capping at a moderate increase/decrease. The user can change the offense/defense status of both himself and his target at will. The user can reset the stacking bonus at will, though the reset will apply to all parties.
This condition can be resisted by those with defenses against involuntary sympathetic links.
Growths: LUK +12
Intuitive knowledge flooded Alarion’s mind as he pivoted from offense to defense in an instant, the manic grin of an epiphany plastered across his face, as if Kali needed any other indication.
The core of the skill remained the same, a slowly stacking bonus to either offense or defense that was matched by his opponent, but the expression of that effect could not have been different. Gone were the days of old, predictable Alarion, trapped by his own skill into offense or defense. He cycled through them with ease now, flowing from one swing into a fluid block, then back to the offensive without missing a beat.
Even worse was the effect he had on Kali’s tempo, stalling his retreat by putting him on ‘offense’, then throwing off the timing of a counterpunch by putting him on ‘defense’. A canny or cautious opponent could adapt or compensate. At the same time, a more powerful foe like Kali could push through any malus, but after weeks of fighting Alarion, Kali remained keenly vulnerable to unexpected changes in otherwise predictable outcomes.
“Did you get it?” Kali asked, the half-formed question all the attention he could spare in the face of a wall of whirling steel.
“Not yet!” Alarion shouted before he flickered a full 180 degrees, in an instant, then pivoted through the rest of the turn to send his mace flying at the back of Kali’s head.
The Godborn dodged it, of course, but it was a near thing that sent him plunging into the river.
Those two skill increases had narrowed the gap between them so substantially that it was almost insulting, but he knew better than to underestimate the Sergeant. Alarion hadn’t caught up yet, and he wouldn’t for some time.
Something his tutor was happy to make clear.
Steam evaporated off Kali’s naked torso as he stood from the river, a single phrase on his lips. “Full Body: High Tension.”
A pulse of something radiated off Kali. Not quite mana, but close enough that it registered in his [Unraveller’s Sense]. Two more boosting skills, Kali had told him. One he couldn’t use unless he dropped below half, and one with a substantial drawback. He hadn’t hit him anywhere near that hard, so it left the latter.
“Are you sure you should be using that?” Alarion asked.
“Are you sure you have time to talk?” Kali asked through clenched teeth. There was an unnatural blush to his usual ivory skin, a dull hue growing darker with each passing second; his skin bruising in real time as he adopted a deep battle stance.
One exchange, then. Trial by fire. Alarion was no stranger to gaining strength in a life-or-death situation, but he had a feeling ZEKE would be going berserk if he saw them acting so rashly.
His weapons fell into the river as he mirrored Kali’s stance. Arrogant, perhaps, but he could feel the change like lightning on his skin. Both weapons were extensions of his will, but they weren’t yet part of him the way his own limbs were. And besides, the last thing he needed was to kill the Sergeant.
“On your time,” Kali told him.
Alarion triggered a skill, then said, “You know, I could just take to the air and let you burn out.”
He didn’t need [Foresight] active to know that Kali would take the bait, or even that the man would rush straight in. He needed it for that split-second of forewarning, that instant of preparation.
Alarion slipped his head to the left of the most likely path of attack, trusting in his instincts that he wasn’t dodging into it instead. Instincts that were well-rewarded.
Next, he triggered a shift. Kali’s defense dropped while his attack power skyrocketed alongside Alarion’s.
He was near, and his enemy was far.
The moment was perfect.
He struck.
And then Kali’s backhand nearly took his head off.
***
“You think he had it?” ZEKE asked, pacing the chrome rail of Alarion’s infirmary bed.
“He had something,” Kali answered, with only a hint of contriteness. His whole body was a quilt of bruises and blood-blisters, but those wounds were nothing compared to the angry, blue-black impact site that peeked out from his bandaged abdomen. “If I hadn’t hit him-“
“Well, let us hope you didn’t knock the whole notion out of his head,” ZEKE said with an exaggerated glare. “Honestly, what-
“He did not,” Alarion croaked.
Kali heaved a sigh of relief, then immediately regretted it as pain washed over him.
“You had me worried, kid.”
“He did not what?” ZEKE asked, as though he’d never doubted his student’s recovery.
“Knock it out of me.”
Orphan’s Fated Strike [Earned]
Description: As a Witness and subject of a Fated Flaw, you know better than any other that there are aspects of reality that cannot be defied. No amount of skill, luck, or even prescience can stop a truly fated outcome. But you also know that not all fates are created equal, and that some can be forged.
This skill draws on your deep connection to the concept of fate, as well as your expertise, timing, and an absurd amount of luck to force a fated outcome onto another. And destroy them.
Requirements: Attribute Mastery (LUK). Near and Far. Foresight. Fatebound Curse. Lucky Strike (Creation Only). Fated to Fight, Fated to Live, Fated to Lose. Witness an act of True Prophecy.
Type: Active.
Activation Time: Instant
Duration: Instant
Cooldown: 24 Hours.
Effects: On impact, sacrifice a variable amount of your LUK attribute to increase your STR attribute for this attack. This sacrifice can be temporary or permanent. Temporary sacrifices grant an increase of 2:1 STR:LUK and are recovered at the end of the cooldown durations. Permanent sacrifices grant an increase of 25:1.
The skills Foresight, Fatebound Curse, and Near and Far must be active to use this skill. The skill Near and Far must be at its cap, with the user’s offense set to maximum and the target’s defense set to minimum, to use this skill.
Growths: LUK +50. Free Points +100.